Chapter 20

The girls might be regretting the twins decision not to join us, but I could see their reasoning. What if we produced a son who turned out to be like Harold? I, for one, wasn't prepared to unleash someone like that on the world.

That thought led to another. My parents were supposed to be pretty powerful. What if Harold was someone like that? Could we defeat him? All by himself, it would certainly be difficult, but he would have help. From what we knew, quite a bit of help. As if we needed anything more to worry about!

I didn't mention my concern to the girls. Either we would be ready, or we wouldn't. Worrying about it wasn't going to help at all. It did serve one purpose, however. I started studying the books a lot more every evening. Some of the spells were starting to make more sense, and a few of them scared the crap out of me. For instance who, in their right mind, would summon a demon?

Others I found interesting, including one that wasn't even part of the book. The entire thing, including the preparatory instructions, took up seventy-three pages. It was hand written, and there were notes in the margins, also. I suspected that my birth parents might have even written it, and that was what really caught my attention.

It was a "Portal spell", whatever that meant. It seemed to be designed to open a gateway to another place. Where that was it didn't say, at least in the description. The whole thing, it seemed, rested on finding a place where the spell would even work. The pages made it sound like finding one of those places was the hardest part of making it work.

So far, I was the only one who had seen it. I had discovered it in the third "Art of War" book, and hadn't paid much attention to it at first. I took its positioning to mean that I needed to master everything that came before it, and that was taking some time. I could tell I was getting stronger, though. The amount of power I could channel now was downright frightening. My stamina was increasing, too. When I began, one spell would leave me feeling like it was the fourth quarter of my first football game. Now, I could practice for hours, and only needed a short rest.

My increased practice time rubbed off on the girls, too. It was getting to the point that we used magic for everything. It was kind of funny to watch dinner being made, for example. The cook would be sitting at the table, while all the pans and utensils did the work. I still did the chores that involved the horses the old fashioned way, though. Diablo had really been angry the one time I hadn't. He didn't mind so much, but it took him hours to calm some of the others. They really freaked out when things started moving by themselves.

It seemed the more we got used to using magic, the easier it became. I guess the old saying "practice makes perfect" held true even in this. Practice was sure helping the team, too. Coach had us doing drills to make us even faster, and the plays he drew up utilized our speed to the fullest advantage. We might be smaller than a lot of the competition, but no one would be faster than us.

The defensive drills we were doing also made us a lot better, as Trail City quickly discovered on Friday night. This was our homecoming game, and we were ready. We didn't make the mistake Whitehorse had, either. We were fired up, but also focused.

We got the ball first, and when I went on the field, we were on our own forty-three yard line. It only took two plays to score. Oddly enough, it was on an option play, and I hadn't tossed the ball. I guess the defense expected me to, because they over pursued so bad I couldn't ignore the huge hole they left me. The blocks I got downfield were so good that I didn't even get touched.

I got to score the next touchdown, as well. This one was on defense, though. On third down, Ernie knocked the ball our of their quarterback's hands. Scooping it up was easy, and I only had to run twenty yards to score that one.

The rest of the game went pretty much the same. Sixty-two to nothing might sound bad, but it could have been much worse. Coach already had some freshmen playing on the varsity, and they saw a lot of time in the fourth quarter. It was the first time I got to watch from the bench, but I had plenty of company. I didn't like it at first, but I could see the reasoning behind the decision. It would not only hold the score down some, but would give the new guys some game experience. They did pretty well. Ted Graham was one of the freshmen, and it looked like he was going to be a pretty good quarterback. The kids playing in the secondary were as fast as the rest of us. Trail City was throwing on almost every down, and not getting anywhere. I think most of the completions were to our team.

The setup in the cafeteria had gone so well that it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to make it an every week thing. The food was great, and it was almost midnight before the place cleared out. Things were kind of a mess after everyone left, so we stayed behind to help clean up. Unfortunately, we couldn't cheat. The whole team pitched in, so magic was not an option. With all the help, it didn't take that long.

The next day was even more hectic. The homecoming dance was a really big deal in this school. My dates started getting ready at noon, and the thing didn't even start until seven! It was worth it, though. They were even more gorgeous than usual.

By the time we got home, I was worn out. My feet hurt so bad that I had to heal them. I didn't get to sit down even for a second the whole night. Not only had my five kept me dancing, but Robin and Wendy went stag. I don't know why, but I seemed to be the only one they would dance with. I guess it was worth it, because they could dance really well. They certainly felt good, too. My feet weren't the only reason I used magic when I got home. Seven lovely girls rubbing all over a guy really has an effect! For someone who claimed not to want to get involved with me, those two sure acted interested. I about drilled a hole in my pants when Robin moved my hands to her butt during a slow one. Damn that felt nice!

I was pretty gimpy when I dragged my ass out of bed. It took another healing spell and two cups of coffee to open my eyes. Once I got going, I was fine. Even though it was barely sunup, I saddled Diablo and grabbed the necessities needed for a ride. We had a nice run, and then I visited with Smokey for a while before going in.

My timing was perfect, as breakfast was just hitting the table. After stuffing myself full of biscuits and gravy, it was back to the books. Both kinds, actually. The homework only took twenty minutes, and then I went on to more important things.

I tried to concentrate on the latest spell I was working to perfect, but my eyes kept drifting back to that pile of loose papers. I was getting really close to the point in the book where they had been inserted, and it was getting harder to ignore them. Finally, I gave up and did more than skim them.

The first several pages described how to find the general location of a possible "juncture of Ley lines", where the spell might prove successful. Then there was a spell to pinpoint the exact spot. Following that, there were instructions on what should be done to prepare and secure the area surrounding the "Portal". The actual spell to create the thing was only four lines, but preceding it were two pages of items that should be taken through with the spell caster.

The list was the strangest thing in the whole pile. What kind of place would require you to have chain mail, a sword, dagger, and supplies for a week? Firearms were explicitly forbidden, as was anything else not found in the "medieval period" of Earth's history. Very strange, indeed!

The next page about made me faint. It was a warning. It said that the portal could only be created in this plane. If anything happened to it on this end, you would be trapped on the other side. There was no hope of returning, unless another gate was opened on this end. Suddenly, I knew why no bodies were found in our house. They were trapped! Could they still be alive? It had been such a long time ago that anything might have happened to them!

The last six pages soothed my fears somewhat. It was a vague, but enlightening description of the other end of the portal. The load we would need began to make more sense. It was described as being much like medieval Europe, but a land where magic was possible. Time was the main difference. It said that time moved much different, there. In fact, there was little basis for comparison. It said that if you spent one year on the other side of the portal, only one minute would pass on Earth. The life span of the traveler was the weirdest part of the whole thing. A person still aged at Earth speed, relative to his location. In other words, if you spent one year there, you aged as if it was one minute here. It made my head spin! If that was true, and my parents were there, it would mean that they would hardly have aged at all!

I was trying to decide how to tell Denise, when I was called down for lunch. I tried to fake it until they were done eating, but I could never fool them. Finally, Cheryl put her sandwich down and said "OK, spill it. You look like you've seen a ghost. What happened?"

I sighed as I got some more coffee, and stared at the cup the whole time I told them what I'd discovered. Things got real exciting then. Denise started it. I might have almost fainted, but she went me one better. At least we caught her before she hit the floor.

After she revived, it took a while to get her calmed down enough to talk reasonably. Before that she wanted to start, in her words, "Right fucking NOW!". Eventually, she saw reason. If we did this, our folks here had to know what we planned. That was assuming we could even find a place to create the thing.

When she admitted that much, we talked about the possibility of being trapped on the other side, too. I confessed to probably being the only one who could open the portal, but flatly refused to be left behind. Even if you subtracted the fact that my parents might be waiting over there, I had other reasons just as important. If we were supposed to take weapons with us, it stood to reason that we might actually need them. I wasn't about to send the girls into danger and sit on my ass at home!

I made it clear that we would not only be taking those weapons, we were going to damn well be able to use them. At the moment, everything I knew about swordplay had come from watching movies. I didn't think that would help much. Besides the sharp objects, I thought we should add both bow and arrows, and crossbows. They should qualify, and would be a little less "up close and personal". Next summer would be the earliest possible time to go, but I figured it would take that long to even find the starting point.

That idea lasted about five minutes into the location spell. It would have been less, but I did it twice to be sure. According to the result, we were right on top of it. Fine tuning took a bit longer, and we ended up in the cave. If it had worked as advertised, the point where the stream emerged from the cliff was perfect.

When we thought about it, it made sense. The line about "where Ley lines meet", especially. All those things we had been calling lines of power headed this way. Besides that, we all could tell that this was where the feeling of magic was the strongest. Once that was done, all that was left was preparation.

When I say all that was left, I'll admit that was a massive understatement. How does one learn to use a sword, with no teacher? Books sure wouldn't cut it, even if we could find any. Movies? What a laugh. What we needed, was a teacher. Those are a little rare in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota.

While we tried to figure that out, we started with what we could do. There were still people among our not so distant neighbors that could use a bow. One phone call got us all the volunteers we needed. Crossbows we thought we could teach ourselves. It didn't look that difficult, at least.